BRYAN FRANKLIN
Another Meeting About Nothing
14 years agoPart two of “Folding Time and Space, The Entrepreneur’s Magic Wand.”
Why Did We Talk?
We are a meeting-happy culture, both in the corporate setting and in the world of the entrepreneur. We somehow think that we can be more successful simply by spending time talking with people who have access to things we want more access to. Not true. Even the meetings you think are going well are likely not productive. Most people judge how well a meeting goes by how it feels to be in the meeting. How was the meeting, I’ll ask? “Oh, it was great. He was really engaged and got really excited about my project.” What is different now, because you met? “Well, he’s really excited now, so I think there’s a possibility that he might get involved in some way.” This to me was a wasted meeting. Even meetings that feel ‘collaborative’, or ‘productive’ may not be when you take a careful look.
I judge how well a meeting goes by what happens AFTER the meeting. Was a different path or future created because we spent time together? Just like with filtering your tasks, you can filter your meetings based on your thematic goal as well. Create a specific result that will move the ball forward in a meaningful way, and then make the meeting about your attempt to accomplish that together. Get something decided. Make promises. Make requests.
Information Sharing – The “Empty Calories” Of Communication
All professional communication can be categorized as follows:
– Information Sharing
– Promises
– Requests
– Decisions
Over 90% of professional communication falls into the first category. Information sharing is always the safest play in a meeting – you can sound smart, fill up some time, have slides to go over that look impressive, and avoid any really risky conversation. Only one problem: Information sharing is the only category of communication that accomplishes absolutely nothing. This is why ‘status update meetings’ always feel like a slow painful death. They usually accomplish nothing of value. People in organizations often complain that there “isn’t enough communication” or that they “don’t know what the others are doing.” These complaints are really the result of poor fidelity of information, not low volume.
If you strive to increase the accuracy and reduce the volume of information sharing – say by 50% – you can nearly double the productivity of most teams. If there are no promises, requests, or decisions, there is no reason to meet. Imagine if you worked to reduce information sharing down to the minimum needed to give context to the other categories of communication. Just enough info to make the decision. Just enough info to understand the promise or request. No more. You’ll notice that in order to increase the accurace of information, you will have to spend more time listening, and it is often listening itself that improves the speakers sense of there being “enough communication”.
Touch It Once
In “Getting Things Done”, David Allen recommends that we only touch each document (digital or physical) once to avoid spending the same cycle looking at but not handling things we need to do over and over again. When applied to meetings, this advice is even more valuable.
Talk about topics in meetings in such a way that they will not need to be covered again. If there are options, make a decision. If there is resistance, make agreements about how to align. If there is something that can be done, do it in the meeting. I’ve been in numerous meetings where I might suggest that take a task offline (like scheduling a series of off-sites) and Jennifer will pipe up and say, “Let’s do it now.” 5 minutes later, that topic is complete, and we’ve only touched it once. As I continue to model her behavior here more and more, my meetings have become more and more effective.
Don’t Fool Yourself Into Thinking You Are Working
Sometimes there’s an obvious outcome that you want from a meeting – like a sales meeting – and sometimes not. When there’s no clear outcome designated for time that you are spending with other people, you must create one or cancel the meeting When I am in a meeting and I don’t know what the outcome is supposed to be, I will immediately interrupt the meeting and clarify that. If you want to increase your productivity, increase your impatience with purposeless conversation. Bonding, connecting, building rapport, and getting to know each other are all wonderful activities – but by themselves they are not work. If you are spending time doing this, you are doing it for fun in your free time, even if you think you are working.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes about meetings – this one from BIll Gates, “If the meeting can start without me, I don’t go at all.”
Facebook comments:
Agreed.
I find that explicitly deciding what NOT to do is inevitably one of the most important parts of my week.
For instance, I’m NOT working today. 🙂
Just got a note offline appreciating the reference to empty calories – thanks Natalie…
As an entrepreneur, I like to triage my meetings and possible tasks related to my business by asking: Does it move me forward in a significant way in regards to any of the following 3 criteria?
1) Cashflow
2) Visibility
3) Opportunity
And if a meeting qualifies for one of those, then one of Bryan’s 3 outcome criteria for that meeting are gold:
-decide
-promise
-request
Marie-Jeanne
What do you mean by “poor fidelity of information” as opposed to “volume” specifically? That people are not honest about what they’re working on, that they don’t provide the correct information, or that they don’t act on the information in the way they say they will?
I also really like the idea of focusing on listening to information instead of sharing it. Do you think that having an explicit expectation, for instance that each person will give their response to a presentation to make sure they are listening, is helpful or makes people feel too much like they’re being graded?
Re: Fidelity vs. Volume.
The invention of the digital carbon copy has created a huge volume of information sharing in the workplace – and the litany of status update meetings that most in management attend can be mind-numbing. This is volume.
I think fidelity is not a simple matter of honest or not honest – or correct or incorrect. High fidelity information provides just the right amount of texture to make good decisions. Its not occluded by reams of irrelevant data, and it doesn’t try to bolster its own view by leaving important stuff out.
For example, most web designs fail because they design team has poor fidelity information about what the purpose of the website is. (Although they often have a high volume of information… I’ve seen a corporate design document that was nearly 100 pages long – but didn’t contain the answer to the simple question, “What is the objective of the website?”)
RE: your explicit expectation question – yes! Although I would just skip the preso all together and ask each person to come to the meeting with a list of promises and requests. The meeting should highlight dependancies and raise any red flags about being off-track. Leave out the rest.
It was amazing how efficient and effective my meetings became when I discovered a passion (obsession) in kiteboarding. The shorter the meetings and the fewer the meetings the more time I got to spend on the water. Get a life, have something better to do than sit in meetings and see how powerfully you stand for getting it done right the first time!
Sharing was the first place I tried to trim the fat. But it was tricky because I worked with parents around sensitive situations with their children. Limiting sharing about this sweet wonderful child could come off as insensitive and cold.
Rapport and connection was absolutely essential. And you are right it is a waste of time to try to build them during a getting things done meeting. Nothing gets done and real connection is rarely created. In my experience trying to accomplish both usually ended up in accomplishing neither or worse.
One of the most powerful impacts on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of my meetings was meetings just for building rapport. I’d meet parents in “neutral territory” of coffee shops. Discussions about services and assessments of their child were off limits. It was just about their kid, all the cute stuff he does and their hopes and dreams for him.
When we had the next “getting things done meeting” we got things done because we knew we were on the same team, now it was time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
Rapport and connection are essential for a team. If “git ‘er done” meetings consistently devolve into contention or “hanging out” it may be worth asking – Would we ultimately get more done if we had a meeting dedicated just to building connection & rapport?
Love it, Lydia.
I don’t think a meeting dedicated to connection and rapport is usually the answer among teams – but can be essential to build 1:1 relationships.
The question is… why are you building rapport and is that underling objective being met?
If you are building rapport to make sure that your later actions are in sync, then you better have a follow-up meeting where those later actions are agreed upon. I see too many people in their 3rd, 4th, or even 10th ‘rapport meeting’ – hoping that the business will eventually ‘come up’.
I totally agree with all you’ve written when it comes to intra-company meetings.
But when it comes to connecting with new people, outside one’s company, I think what you say is off in a lot of ways.
“Bonding, connecting, building rapport, and getting to know each other are all wonderful activities – but by themselves they are not work.”
Part of why I have one of the biggest and most amazing networks of anyone I know is that I specifically do *not* believe the viewpoint expressed in that sentence. I spend a good part of each workday just connecting with people new people.
I just had a 2-hour phone conversation with an amazing and very powerful and well-connected new contact I got introduced to.
We were just getting to know each other over the phone. By the end I was giving him dating advice on a big date he has coming up with a woman he’s madly in love with!
In the middle of a workday!
And you know what? This guy will be a lifelong friend and business connection. I’m sure of it. All because I was more interested in getting to know him as a human being, and help him as a human being, without going into the phone meeting with an agenda.
The kind of utilitarian “let’s get down to business” attitude you advocate in this post towards business meetings simply doesn’t work when building new life-long business relationships with the high-powered people I connect with on a regular basis. With them (us I should say) it’s all about building relationships. The relationship comes first, always. Specific business agendas come second.
Yes. I think you’ve exposed a bit of miopia that I’ve put on in order to write the post.
I take it back 🙂 Building Rapport can be work, provided that you have an objective for the network in general and that objective is being met.
I will say that this type of networking should supplement your core business activity (such as your writing, meeting with agents and publishers, etc.)
If know how to utilize your network to bear fruit, then non-linear, open-ended networking is a very profitable activity. If you don’t…well…
This is only the first step. The next step is how to follow up with people on their promises and deliverables, which in itself can be a daunting task. How do you manage that, Bryan? How do you manage it without becoming annoying and micro-managey?
Actually, rather than having a follow up procedure, I simply generate more promises and requests.
If someone promises and doesn’t deliver, I may make a follow up request. If that doesn’t happen, I may convert it to a promise to take care of it myself. If this continues, I may make a request that the pattern be brought to someone else’s attention.
If you can’t remember your promises, you didn’t make them.
If you can’t remember your requests, you didn’t need to make them.
Well here’s the one that harshin’s my buzz. As an entrepreneur who gets awarded a project and I am request to attend a meeting to discuss how the process will proceed and gain further input from the client about the production.(part of the job)
At this point the client assumes they have purchased your attention and try to fill your day with their company which includes others who may drop in or out during the meeting extending and causing parts to be repeated.This being done in the name of covering all the details of the project.( not really part of the job)
No matter how the time parameters are established before hand clients expect that if you are in their sights they own your time.
So how to be polite, firm, brief as possible and leave the client smiling is the question
This is the essence of leadership, Ken. How can you ‘hold the frame’ and lead the interaction so that you are guiding the day – not the client?
And in doing so, leave the client with all of their needs well met, and therefor satisfied.
From your story, it seems that you have the idea of ‘service’ mixed in with the idea of ‘submission’. To truly be served, most clients require a touch of dominance from their vendors. If they knew how to lead the effort, they would tackle the issue internally…
Bryan.
Thanks. As I’m about to embark into more meetings (largely as a result of the “marketing letter” gift you gave me!), I can really feel the potential power that will come from having clear intention to: Promise, Request, and/or Decide as a function of said meeting(s). Enlightening to see “Meetings” in that trilogy-context (quad if you include Information-Sharing).
It all also really jibes with how I’m striving to live my life more intentionally in an everyday, non-work way. Very fun to see the application of the same degree of intention to the work I am offering.
So thanks for the wisdom.
Appreciated immensely…
-Robert
Heh. We almost had that meinetg twice this week. One of our action items one we had to go over in two different meinetgs was that our scrums and our planning meinetgs are running too long. I estimate we spent nearly 15 minutes on that topic across the two meinetgs. 15 minutes is supposed to be the length of one scrum.
As the president of a non-profit board, I have struggled to keep our board meetings from being marathons. We now endeavor to start discussions on-line and save the critical dicsussions and votes for the meetings. I have asked each of the board members to submit what they want to report on and the time the want to do so. This has cut our meeting times by about 50%.
As for other meetings, either for business or pleasure, (or any endeavor for that matter) I find it best to set a goal for each. If all I plan on doing is sharing my week with an associate and socializing, then I leave the “meeting” feeling better than if I felt I should be doing business when I didn’t. If I meet someone for “coffee” I set a goal and agenda for that as well. I do this just so I know I have accomplished something and not wasted my time.
I love it!